“Everybody says that there is money in advertising,” Ted quotes maliciously. “Where have I heard that before?”
“That's what anybody says about anything till they try it. Well, there is—but not in six months for a copy-writer at Vanamee and Co. Especially when the said copy-writer has to have enough to marry on.” “And will write novels when he ought to be reading, 'How I Sold America on Ossified Oats' like a good little boy. Young people are so impatient.”
“Well, good Lord, Ted, we've been engaged eight months already and we aren't getting any furtherer—”
“Remember the copybooks, my son. The love of a pure, good woman and the one-way pocket—that's what makes the millionaires. Besides, look at Isaac.”
“Well, I'm no Isaac. And Nancy isn't Rebekah, praises be! But it is an—emotional strain. On both of us.”
“Well, all you have to do is sell your serial rights. After that—pie.”
“I know. The trouble is, I can see it so plain if everything happens right—and then—well—”
Ted is not very consoling.
“People get funny ideas about each other when they aren't close by. Even when they're in love,” he says rather darkly; and then, for no apparent reason, “Poor Billy. See it?”
Oliver has, unfortunately—the announcement that the engagement between Miss Flavia Marston of Detroit and Mr. William Curting of New York has been broken by mutual consent was an inconspicuous little paragraph in the morning papers. “That was all—just funny ideas and being away. And then this homebred talent came along,” Ted muses.